NATO actions encourage Kiev to maintain impasse in Donbass

Sunday, July 16, 2017 - 16:00

NATO's encouraging signals to Kiev contribute to the preservation of the current position of the Ukrainian authorities and the preservation of the impasse in the situation in Donbass, Russia's permanent representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said.

Speaking after the meeting of the Russia-NATO Council at the level of the Permanent Representatives, Grushko stated that the representatives of the alliance, "verbally speaking in favour of the Minsk agreements' implementation, do not take any concrete measures aimed at encouraging the Kiev authorities to implement them."

"There is a danger that the actions which NATO countries are currently conducting in Ukraine, the assistance programme, are the encouraging signals, in fact, aimed at encouraging the official authorities to maintain their current position and impasse in the situation in Donbass," the RF Permanent Representative said.

According to him, in this sense, NATO's position contradicts the interests of a reliable settlement of the crisis by political and diplomatic means on the basis of full implementation of the Minsk agreements.